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Yes- that is our own Dr. T getting ready to kick some Yellow Jacket ass. Actually that is an almost perfect Southpaw boxing stance shown bu the Old Dentist.

OK guys and gals – here is the official POV Georgia Tech Game Thread. Enjoy the game and take your blood pressure medications as needed.

I will ask you that if you haven’t made a formal prediction yet to to go back to the GT Predictions article and leave your predictions there so it is easier to figure out who had the most accurate one.

We need this one badly folks – I suppose we could look at our PSU and OSU’s losses and make excuses that they were Top 10 opponents, but no longer is that the case. This is our first ACC match and we need to come through with a win.

If we can’t do that then we at least have to play a decent enough game so that we can feel like we can win other ACC games on our schedule. Let’s hope we pull it out and that every one of our Panthers come out of the game as healthy as they went into it.

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Reed Kohberger
Retired Coast Guard Officer with a lot of time on his hands and working a hobby that he enjoys and is actually free - writing.... on all different sorts of things but mostly Pitt football. You can see my more public articles and essays at WWW.pittblather.com, reedkohberger.wordpress.com and the new Pitt football blog www.pittpov.com.

473 thoughts on “POV: Pitt vs Georgia Tech Game Thread”

I posted before the season the D woulds be improving and by this game they will start to emerge. I was wrong. I don’t think Pitt can stop GTech and the offense for Pitt is still to pedestrian. Hodges at guard, Bookser to RT. At least the human turnstile is out. Ben will start and first road game for him as a starter. not good.

Everyone in the United States now knows how to defend the jet sweep so QH can no longer make big plays there. On his returns, he has always carried the ball loosely so he fumbles. Nothing new there either.

QH did well on staying in bounds. However, this return included his running backwards which has been so scary this year. Fortunately there was a missed tackle that prevented loss of yards. The wall was pretty good as well.

I’m pretty sure Winslow is auditioning for the NFL right now showing off his distance. I’m not a punter and I could figure out how not to blast it every single time. Someone tell him to cut that crap out

Too much love for DiNuch. 3 and outs in both those series was on him – well Jester should have caught the pass. But the QB does not look like he has a D1 arm. Two would be picks were missed by the GT defenders.

The Oline should be a strength of this team. I’m with Emel – move O’Neill back to the RT next to Bookser at RG. They played well together last year. Protecting DiNuch’s blind side can’t get much worse.

Let’s see if D.C. Conklin can make the necessary adjustments to slow the GT running attack. 255 yards in the 1st half is unacceptable. And does O.C. Watson know what an adjustment is?

If PITT loses a close game, it will be easy to call attention to failing to score after securing two turnovers. However, if PITT wins a close game, the turnovers will be noted for preventing GT from being up more than 4 going into the half.

The adjustment to make on D would be push the Dline into the Oline instead of stepping back – be more aggressive and tackle the QB hard every play.

The O needs to open up the playbook and put the receivers in the game that can catch and fight for the 50-50 balls. And since the Oline is struggling to pass protect, find a way to run the ball down their throat – our roadgraders vs their light DLine.

Carter not making the trip hurts the rotation. He also has some size in the middle. Watts is not stout enough. Camp for all his strength is getting pushed around far to easily. Oh well don’t have the horses.

WE all wanted Conklin fired after last game. But, in reality, Duzz is fully and completely to blame for this defense, the scheme and players inability to tackle. BUT, maybe it’s not the “technique” or “knowing your reads” as Duzz likes to use for an excuse. Maybe these are not D1 athletes and can’t tackle, because they just can’t!

I expected our D to be gashed. 45 is over/under for GT. They are over half way there and well on their way. Nard Dog is no D genius. 3 total wins this year. But Heather will play nice because she’s afraid of his bark.

Heather – where would you Lyke me to send the rest of my season tickets for you to give them away? I expect nothing in return and I saw nothing in the 1st four games you presented to me for my entertainment.

OK I’m officially done! I can abide an inexperienced defense of 8/9 new starters being handled by offensive juggernauts. I cannot handle this total offensive incompetency. 1 TD so far (the other a punt return)

DiNuch has been handicapped with no playmakers on the field at the same time. I’d consider QH and Whitehead as our main playmakers. Back-up them would be Ffrench and maybe Weah. Two playmakers should be on the field for every offensive play to help confuse the D.

GT’s D has not been confused much today if at all after the 1st TD drive by Pitt.

Watson + piss poor defense+ no offensive line = another loss. And our D didn’t create the turnovers, they were gifts. If not for those gifts, this would be worse than OSU. We cant stop the dive? Can’t throw ball more than 5 yards? Sad.

Max Browne just dropped back, needing 6 yards. He stared the entire play at one receiver. That receiver ran a route 3 yards short of the first down. Max is not the answer. This offense is a joke. Other than the TD to Ollison, did we throw a ball more than 10 yards downfield all day? Pathetic.

The announcers are perplexed at how uncreative of a gameplan implemented by Pitt. One of them is a QB (not sure who) and he said GT has been playing zone all game and that he was shocked at how they did not use Ben Denucci’s legs to roll out and find seems in the zone.

You know Reed is right…it’s coaching. It’s not the talent, it’s not the youth. It’s flat out bad coaching. getting cute on a 3rd and 1 when you needed just a yard. And you decide to run east/west on a jet sweep fumble.

Hell spread em out and use Ben’s legs on a draw if you need to be cutesy. But I would prefer you line em up and punch them in the mouth to get the yard.

I am sick of the sub-standard coaching. You know their are FBS schools that hire better coaches than this crap we have at UPitt. There is no excuse for this except we have an incompetent CEO head coach.

I think Nard Dog is over his head as a head coach. Might as well rinse and repeat again. I dont see him ever getting us to 8-10 wins consistently each year or even competing for a ACC title. He’s a 6 win per year coach…and thats even with 3 patsies thrown in.

one other thing…bloggers tend to talk about how us Pitt fans are impatient and want to fire a coach at a drop of a pin.

I disagree…it took a while before center mass grew tired of Wanny. Chryst while some of the more vocal were ready to purge him…center mass wanted to give him a shot.

It’s year 3 of PN program. I don’t think the more reasonable fan expected an explosive offense. what we did expect, however, was a defense that was capable of putting a solid performance. Yes they were on the field a long time and yes they had 4 or 5 turnovers.

But they still look terrible in execution of defense and gave up over 425 yards on the ground. Hey PN D scheme can’t stop the run, can’t stop the pass. But other than that they are a shutdown D.

I can’t excuse a Defense that doesn’t show any signs of improvement in year 3 of a supposed D guru head coach’s regime.

John – the presser will be “We had really good opportunities to capitalize on their turnovers, we just didn’t capitalize”…..and on D, “We had the kids in position to make plays, they just didn’t execute, didn’t play their reads…Blah, blah, blah”. Guarantee he won’t say anything else.

We will go winless the rest of the year
Narduzzi will get an extension
Heather will develop a sponsorship with Fanta
Gallagher will be high fiving BoT members
KS and his Rockports will be more popular than the football program despite finishing last in the ACC and achieving 8 wins…Hell its 7 more wins than the football team

Is Narduzzi that bad now? Players make the coach to a large degree, but man Pitt isn’t close to a quality program. Staff changes aside, Narduzzi has been in coaching long enough to know when a team is badly performing. Quit making excuses and build for next year and set the tone that PT is earned. the good news is Pitt has 11 seniors and can begin the job of coaching those who have a future

I think the better ? I have for those who follow more closely…what do we have in cupboard for year 4 of this program.

I am not asking about coaching cause I know that would be an easy answer to say what’s the point? I am saying fine let’s buy PN’s bs that it’s execution. Well what do we have staring next year that will be any better than this year?

We will have an untested QB, I don’t see a whole lot at WR. Perhaps the Oline will improve. Will we be seeing the next Connor at HB?

On D – is there really talent in the pits? Will the LB’s improve with experience? Will our porous secondary finally become little islands of despair for opposing WR’s?

I just don’t see it…but then again I am in that preconceived group that thinks the incompetence of the program is at many levels…talent evaluation, coaching/teaching, gameplanning…

Indeed if GT doesn’t fumble 4 times (3 in Pitt territory) this is an even uglier beating than OSU.

I think PoD is at least going back to Chryst if not Wanny. At this point Wannstedt has to be looking pretty damn good since he brought the last 10 win season and was a true Pitt guy who would never voluntarily leave. Even the 2010 UConn choke and subsequent WVU beating are totally forgivable over what we’ve witnessed these last 6 games.

Might also suggest to stop giving any money to their alumni fundraising drives, and be clear to the nice student calling that you are not giving because the Pitt administration (and BOTrustees) do not care about Pitt football.

Heather thinks free Fantas are the answer
Nardoozle thinks he’s still playing in the Big 10 and he’s a defensive genius
Gallagher thinks people want to hang on our front porch
The BoT is loving all this because they dont want to spend any more than they have to on sports
Pitt will be kicked out of the ACC in 3 years. We drag the conference down. And we’re also slipping academically. Perception is everything and Pitt gives perception a new name called reality.
We might be good at D-II sports

I think Pitt beats rice, maybe NC. But NC ST, VA, Duke, Miami, V Tech don’t look good. Syracuse may be a loss as well away. So 3 wins maybe 4. that is to steep a decline to go more than one more year. If Narduzzi has a mediocre result in 2018, then some serious soul searching is needed.

You are never as good as you seem when you win and never as bad as you look when you lose…..nah, we suck from qb’s to o-line to rb’s to wr(mostly) to d-line to lb’s to db’s. Ok, we have a really nice punter….now let’s go out there and beat us up some Rice boys <maybe?>.

Used to be we had a basketball season to look forward to…nope.

Well this does give me added motivation to keep my daughter from heading to Pitt next year. UMd looking better every weekend.

Had to tape second half…Hard to watch our offense go from prolific to inept in one season…play calling was pedestrian the entire game…Defense attempted and whiffed on more arm tackles than I have ever seen in a game…poor fundamentals play after play…I am embarrassed for our coaches!

My mini-brain gets fried when I stop to think about the fact that we had ONLY had 37 yards (net) rushing. How is that possible? We have completely collapsed. Duzzi can’t spin this in any way shape or form.

What to say, what to say? Of course there is more questions than answers. The biggest question for me is…… Was PITT and Narduzzi really trying to win this game? Cause it sure didn’t look like it to me.

What was the grand idea of not throwing the football past the first down markers all afternoon? At first glance and still trying to find words I’ll just say. If the offense would have held up their end of the deal today, the game could have been very close. That was mind boggling to me. . . . ike

Mind boggling Ike. They played not to lose. Couldn’t agree more. Coaches appeared to just be trying to keep the score down.
I know Tech was playing a deep zone but when you’re down 11 you have to at least try to throw long.

Ready for Pickett. Redo the O line
Get rid of the fresh center who got pancaked 4x.

And guess we all should be in mourning, Dr. Tom probably dead as a result of that fight with the bee featured above.
Odd that he took up the fight as it sure appeared reading this blog, he was smart enough to have thrown in the towel on this team early this year.

What happened is what happened. The triple option is a high risk type of offense and turnovers will happen. It did look like PITT didn’t want to win and GT with the goofy passing helped keep the score relatively close until the end.

I don’t have much positive to say about this team right now. I think the coaching was horrible to be kind about it.

So is it fire Conklin, fire Watson or fire Narduzzi? << Which is essentially firing the whole kit and kibuttal. I can just picture Reed down in his POV laboratory cooking up a podcast concoction with steam coming out of his ears and a ton of…….. I told you so’s!

Myself, I’m basically at a loss for words right now. Narduzzi has to do much better than this. This is very poor.. . .. .ike

Browne is clearly the choice. LOL! You guys are funny. Browne has a dismal outing and he blows. Dinucci has an equally dismal outing and its fire Watson. Why can’t Dinucci blow too? Or has the lightbulb gone on for some of you and you realize that Watson called the plays in games 1,2 or 3 too? Dinucci doesn’t roll out to his left because you actually need arm strength to throw against your body. He always goes out to the right. He is not D1. That said, he did have above average velocity on the throw that went directly south into the turf at GT during the first quarter. Browne is probably not the answer either if the plays continue to be called as they have for the first 4 games.

As previously indicated and suggested, I would play Pickett against Rice as this is a team they should beat and you can give the kid some confidence. Football is time place and circumstance. What you all are starting to see perhaps is that it is not the players that are terrible, but you make fun of them like it’s their fault all the time.

RB – Davis play since you have already burnt his redshirt.

WR’s need to be Lopes, Mathews and Weah.

TE – Sear, Clarke – You have already burnt the redshirt on Sear.

OL – Officer – if he gets any wider he will be listed as Gurd and Center

DC – Conklin or Partridge
OC- Watson or

Sandlot offense is more fun to watch. Open it up with a new qb.

UPitt – Congrats my friend on your special day. Shoot me off a pic or two and I will lift my glass and give you a toast this evening. Great atmosphere in my neck of woods today!

Reed, you’re the boss. When you say it’s time to submit new HC candidates I’ll be ready, as I’m starting to ponder that question . Being young as a team is no excuse for being clueless on both sides of the ball. If the CEO doesn’t see a need for change , he becomes a part of the change needed. This is ridiculous !

Pitt’s qbs. Ben can’t throw deep so he doesn’t try to. Max takes too long to make good decisions and rarely even looks deep. Some of the receivers arnt running their routes hard, probably because they know neither qb will throw it to them if they run beyond the 10 yard mark.

The coaches for not having a capable d1 qb out on the field, nor having the d prepared to stop the run.

From the Spirit of Pitt Stadium:
I am saddened by the continued mediocrity of the program. I truly believed that when I was put into that box on the last game played on campus that my spirit would be re-born and would bring Pitt football to new heights. I could not have been more wrong.

Since 2001 and the move to Heinz, I have witnessed a thing called Pitting and became familiar with the term SOP. These concepts are hard for me to understand since I thought our BoT was truly committed to excellence.

I have also seen my destroyer sabotage the brand with some hideous DinoCat, our colors changed to something unrecognizable and a coaching carousel of epic proportions.

I am then blinded by the yellow each game and begin longing for those silver bleachers.

What did I do to deserve this fate?

I can only wish that Pitt gets their collective heads out of their butts and recognize that if we continue down this path, there will no longer be a Pitt spirit. I need nurtured and I damn well deserve some respect.

I truly appreciate the love from all the POVerts. It is for you that I continue in hopes that someday Pitt will bask in glory. H2P. Spirit.

I received this message from Spirit just now. The Ouija Board is something else.

The Spirit of Pitt died when they opened the box and it saw empty gold seats and 2 ketchup bottles.

Next month I turn 63 and what is truly depressing is that in all likelihood i will not live to see Pitt return to respectability, let alone mediocrity. Narduzzi is out of his league and over matched but is safe until after 2018. Heather hasn’t the guts, brains or power to see how bad this program and its coaches are. Pickett will not play this year as Narduzzi is so comfortable (not in the hot seat) that he feels no pressure to do so. I could go position by position.

To me the greatest disappointment is Weah. He does not run precise routes, he dogs it if he isn’t the primary receiver and his hands of stone have returned. When the announcers, who were not geniuses, could see that Watson was throwing short all day – excluding the first drive – I think many players have to be wondering the same thing. OL coach Peterson is horrible as are his lineman.

All fall camp it was bragged by Narduzzi that the linemen were each learning different positions in the line – hows that working out?

Outside of special teams there is not one area of this team that is good enough to be called adequate. Nothing but silence from the administration. I was struck by a thought today of an announcer, not sure which game, that noticed that Dabo was a known excellent recruiter. When Pitt hires a coach they hire these “search firms” but nobody really goes around actually trying to find the the next Dabo. Pitt will never do that, they are not involved that much in caring about football.

Narduzzi will be around at least three more years. While I would like to see him develop like a Beamer its not going to happen. This is a disgrace but I bet the BOT are drinking Fanta and (pick your alcohol) on the plane back to the Burgh. Sad, sad, sad.

Thoughts:
Where was Cam Carter? I thought he was playing well.
Why does Shane Roy play at all?
Time for Jester to take a seat on the bench,,,as reliable as a Tijuana rubber.
The entire offensive line is atrocious. Walter Payton couldn’t get 100 yards with those guys leading the way.
And whoever said Tressel/Pelini is a smart fella.

As a grad of “U” as well as Pitt, I can now pay more attention to my southern team, which is struggling to beat Toledo. This Pitt team is as bad as any I can rember, and I attended games back to the 50’s.
By the way that invincible team we lost to last week has just lost to TCU, there goes our power ranking.
Mark May got fired this year we should bring him in as AD or at least put him in charge of football activities. This mess needs help.

The majority of you counting Rice as automatic need to wake-up. Owls are 1-2 getting blown out by two pretty good teams (Stanford and Houston) and handily beating UTEP. They’re currently tied with FIU. If Pitt is favored, take the points. Game is a toss-up.

The leading rusher was safety Jordan Whitehead, who carried twice for 35 yards. Ollison gained 11 yards on seven carries, but added five catches for 44 yards and a 28-yard touchdown.

“We’ve got to do something with the football,” Narduzzi said. “You can’t win if you don’t score points. At halftime, we had 24 plays and they had about 50. That’s not good … because they’re going to continue to run it and run it and run it.”

Anyone watching the LSU-Syracuse game? I’m finding it funny, in an odd sort of way, watching the game with some local friends, and listening to them bitch about the play calling of Matt Canada and the “vanilla” offense, running the same failed plays several times, not adjusting the offense based on defensive adjustments, etc.

Fortunately, LSU broke the 7-3 score with a little over a minute left in the half with a nice crossing pass play that went for a touchdown, so the bitching got subdued.

Got me to ponder, given LSU’s consistent top-rated recruiting classes, how much does the coaching make the offense successful. In this case, we Pitt fans consider Canada to have been a bright innovative OC that made the best of Pitt’s talent (which does not claim top-rated recruiting classes). Given the talent pool at LSU, the fans here in Louisiana were expecting something more than scoring 7 points against Miss St (losing 7-37) and only 14 in today’s first half against Cuse, hoping for an “instant” upgrade to LSU’s offense from last year.

I’ll see how the 2nd half goes, to see if my limited sample of fans feels better about Canada.

Lots of variables going on there Nola. Pitt’s offense had a lot of Senior leadership last year. Peterman, Conner, Biz, DJ, Orndoff which led them to easier pick up Canada’s offense. Don’t follow LSU so they might not have the brightest kids around. LSU is a football factory, so that would fit. State school, check.
Never known as an academic school, check.

Spot on regarding leadership. With the exception of O’Neill the guys on the line had been full-time or at least part-time starters for two seasons. The only serious question mark entering the season was replacing Boyd’s production at WR.

Canada deserves credit for expanding Conner’s role to include catching passes, devising the jet action with QH to keep defenses honest with regard to Conner, and engaging Aston and Orndoff with the shovel pass.

I do know from watching 3 games now, this Watson is a dolt. 1 for 13 on 3rd downs. You can’t convert if you don’t throw past the sticks or at the sticks. Indiana football, Quality & Control. haha Just seems like another hack lifer coach, that somebody employs every year. Just because.

Cannot disagree with your observations on Watson. I do recall that the commenters on this board (led by UPittB I believe) were very negative on the Watson hiring and that’s proving to be a a good call!

P.S. to my earlier note on the LSU game. On the first play of the 2nd half, LSU threw a long pass on 1st down and got a TD. TV sportcasters got a message from the on field reporter that LSU coach Ogeron, was upset about always running on 1st down and overrode Canada by calling a pass on 1st down… and it worked! Could be some interesting post-game commentary about offensive play calling!

Everyone gets a mulligan. WVU was 4-8 and bounced back. Heck even the nitters posted 3-9 then 4-8 seasons back to back but came back with an 11-1 season the following year. This may just be one of those years.

And if it is one of those years, really haven’t had one since Walt’s 1998 season, although Wanny in 2007 was depressing, except for 13-9. So we are kind of spoiled.

That said, there are some definite red flags to be concerned with. Talent level being one of them. Listening to pre-game interview with Moss; said he was thrilled to come to Pitt since we were his only P5 offer. Even when nits were down they recruited strong. WVU signed Henry after that 4-8 season.

I thought last year was an anomaly whiffing bad on the WPIAL. Now we already lost on Asamoah and Raines is shaky. Need to really close on Raines and pull something out of the hat or that is 2 mediocre years in a row (although I really like the WPIAL lineman we signed this year)

It is okay to question Narduzzi without being accused of wanting a change. There is no way he should not get 5 years minimum, unless he walks away or does something Haywood level wrong.

And the question would be is Narduzzi going to be able to get this ship righted? Last years defense was historically bad. This year is just as bad. I could understand if Narduzzi was Art Briles or some other air-raid coach. BUT HE WAS SOLD AS A DEFENSIVE WIZARD! It doesn’t appear he has a clue on how to improve on this defense.

It seems like Narduzzi is from the Wannstedt school of defense….line up and beat your man. No scheme, no change, no adjustment. This is my defense and I’m the expert so you will run it as is.

And the offense……even worse than the defense. GaTech had a bad defense (watch the Tennessee game if you question that). That performance was pathetic. Hackett era play calling of 5 yard passes on 3rd and 10. Is it the talent, or the coaching (i.e. what would we see different from Canada)? We should have been able to run at will. Pathetic that Whitehead was the leading rusher today.

I don’t like calling out a kid so I’ll just say that the right tackle on the o-line might be the worse I have seen in D1.
There was a reason the DiNucci had no P5 offers and Chryst didn’t offer.

I am optimistic on some of the talent on defense. Hamlin, Ford, the d-line. But unless something happens with QB, how will next year improve on this?

I really want Narduzzi to be the man but I’m thinking we are looking at SOP. 8-5 usually gets you fired here. I think it is time to change the paradigm. If we are at 8-5 in year 5, you keep Narduzzi. If we are on are 3rd losing season in a row in year 5, then you have to make a change.

@Nola – I mentioned earlier that Syracuse would give LSU a battle and that happened…7-3 with a minute left in first half. LSU is now using a TRUE Freshman QB and they are doing well, opening it up a bit. Georgia is using a true freshman QB and doing well. FSU started a true freshman qb against ncstate and lost.

Look, Browne is too late. He is a 5th year freshman. Dinucci, is bad. We need to get Pickett snaps and all the other true freshman and redshirt freshman that are close to playing. Play them now. When seasons go like this, there is an opportunity to fresh/soph to transfer because they aren’t seeing the field on a bad team. Best to play them, keep them and watch them grow.

What happened to Dontavious Butler. I thought he was close to breaking in. I would start him, mathews and Lopes at the WR position. Pickett and then a couple of the RS lineman. Warren Carter and Jerry Drake come to mind as does Justin Morgan…..

In all fairness, TCU is ranked 16th. OSU was coming off a route and was probably overconfident. I lobbied for Tressel as soon as Barney quit.

I will pronged blasted for saying this but I could live with what we had W Chryst and Narduzzi ‘s 1st 2 years. I had no delusions that Pitt would get back to their glory years. I would we reasonably happy with 7-10 wins a year, and splitting our bowl games.

I could handle getting blown out once a year if we were otherwise competitive in defeat. I don’t expect Pitt to be Alabama , the OSU, or Clemson. But I expect Pitt to be on a level with the Georgia Techs, TCUs, and Virginia Techs of the world. When rebuilding I still expect to compete. But this I can’t stomach . We have sunken to the level of Wake Forest, BC, Illinois, Indiana, etc.

If Pitt wants the money being a member of the ACC brings, it needs to spend enough to sustain reasonable success in this league and make the hard decisions when that level of achievement is not being reached. Something needs to be done or resign the ACC and see if we can get in the American Athletic Conference . Just stop embarrassing the few loyal fans they you have.

No. 27 should have batted that ball down. He didn’t even look like he jumped. That is straight out of the Pitt book of not making a play when it is there to be made. I think Iowa blitzed because its front four was dead tired. Zero penetration there those last few plays.

Not sure why Max and Ben are labeled as bad when receivers dont get open and o-line cant block for running backs or anyone else.
Anyone think Oakland Dan would fare any better?
Jester is what he was two years ago.
JJS is a statue.
Officer is a slug.
When the strong safety leads the team in rushing, that speaks volumes.
On a positive note, we wont lose a bowl game this year.

Emel may have laughed at me when I said the Syracuse game would be tight. Syracuse has many more two stars and three stars than us, but they play with heart. All 11. Every play.

We don’t. Our guys are soft. When we trot out 3 walk-ons as starters, there is a problem. Now if Narduzzi needs to do this in order to stabilize the program for years to come, that is fine. However, he should have said this is a rebuild for the long haul instead of saying we are pursuing the ACC championship.

Why is Ga, LSU, , FSU Alabama last year and manyothers playing true freshmen QB’s?

@Huff…. Good point on the schools playing freshman QB’s. At LSU, Myles Brennan was a 4* recruit and after summer camp became the #2 QB in the lineup, with the starting QB (Etling) coming back from back surgery early in the year, so playing Myles makes sense in case of problems with the starting QB. Don’t know the situations at GA and BAMA, but most are aware of FSU losing their starter, and like LSU the best avail QB is a freshman.

With Pitt, from what I read on this forum, Pickett was viewed by coaches as too raw and needed more “seasoning”, but if he has the raw talent (like when FSU inserted Jamais Winston into the Pitt-FSU game and he became an instant wonder), then it would be worth burning the redshirt and give him game experience in prep for next year.

However, I wonder if Pitt can recruit a phenom QB unless Pitt demonstrates that there are a couple of top receivers already here (or coming in) so that the QB can see himself having success. Wasn’t that the Walt Harris strategy, i.e. get a great QB and you can recruit good wide receivers; get good receivers and you can attract a good QB. Problem I see is that Pitt has neither at the moment.

Winston was a redshirt frosh when he started the opener vs Pitt in 2013. I wouldn’t burn Pickett’s redshirt at this point, but they might as well get MacVittie some reps in practice so they can insert him in a game like today & find out if he is a viable option. It’s all a moot point if the line doesn’t start blocking someone.